07.31.09

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.

Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

While it is all well and good to belittle the birth-certificate controversy, without it we’d know only what the media and Obama himself would tell us about his multiple citizenships, which is nothing. As noted above, we now know Obama, by operation of British and Kenyan law, was a citizen of Kenya (a status that lapsed in 1982, when he turned 21). That’s something voters would find relevant, especially when Obama’s shocking 2006 conduct in Kenya is considered. But we don’t know about his Kenyan citizenship because the media thought it was newsworthy. We know it only because of the birth-certificate controversy: Pressed to debunk the allegation that Obama was born in Kenya, his embarrassed supporters felt compelled to clarify his Kenyan citizenship.

By contrast, the question whether Obama ever was an Indonesian citizen is still unresolved, as are such related matters as whether the foreign citizenship (if he had it) ever lapsed, and whether he ever held or used an Indonesian passport — for example, during a mysterious trip to Pakistan he took in 1981, after Zia’s coup, when advisories warned Americans against traveling there. By the way, many details about that journey, too, remain unknown. Obama strangely neglected to mention it in his 850 pages of autobiography, even though the 20-year-old’s adventure included a stay at the home of prominent Pakistani politicians.

There may be perfectly benign answers to all of this. But the real question is: Why don’t the media — the watchdog legions who trekked to Sarah Palin’s Alaska hometown to scour for every kernel of gossip, and who were so desperate for Bush dirt that they ran with palpably forged military records — want to dig into Obama’s background?

Who cares that Hawaii’s full state records would doubtless confirm what we already know about Obama’s birthplace? They would also reveal interesting facts about Obama’s life: the delivering doctor, how his parents described themselves, which of them provided the pertinent information, etc. Wasn’t the press once in the business of interesting — and even not-so-interesting — news?

And why would Obama not welcome Hawaii’s release of any record in its possession about the facts and circumstances of his birth? Isn’t that kind of weird? It would, after all, make the whole issue go away and, if there’s nothing there, make those who’ve obsessed over it look like fools. Why should I need any better reason to be curious than Obama’s odd resistance to so obvious a resolution?

There’s speculation out there from the former CIA officer Larry Johnson — who is no right-winger and is convinced the president was born in Hawaii — that the full state records would probably show Obama was adopted by the Indonesian Muslim Lolo Soetoro and became formally known as “Barry Soetoro.” Obama may have wanted that suppressed for a host of reasons: issues about his citizenship, questions about his name (it’s been claimed that Obama represented in his application to the Illinois bar that he had never been known by any name other than Barack Obama), and the undermining of his (false) claim of remoteness from Islam. Is that true? I don’t know and neither do you.

But we should know. The point has little to do with whether Obama was born in Hawaii. I’m quite confident that he was. The issue is: What is the true personal history of the man who has been sold to us based on nothing but his personal history? On that issue, Obama has demonstrated himself to be an unreliable source and, sadly, we can’t trust the media to get to the bottom of it. What’s wrong with saying, to a president who promised unprecedented “transparency”: Give us all the raw data and we’ll figure it out for ourselves?

If our government can mismanage a fairly simple program like the Cash for Clunkers, what makes people think they will ever be able to manage health care? Wake up, people!!!

The House raced Friday to pass legislation to inject an additional $2 billion into the “cash for clunkers” program, whose immediate popularity this week threatened to sink the program.

The $2 billion boost would be created by shuffling around funds from the Recovery and Reinvestment Act, an emergency stimulus for the original $1 billion budget for rebates on new cars that lawmakers worried had been exhausted in only a week.

Reps. Sander Levin, D-Mich., and Betty Sutton, D-Ohio, said the House planned to consider the additional funding after lawmakers from the two states were assured by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood that the program would continue while the Obama administration looked for more money.

Democrats in the House were exploring the possibility of votes as early as Friday to replenish the funding. The Senate was not scheduled to vote on Friday but lawmakers hoped to win approval for additional funding next week.

But conservative Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., will object to any additional infusion of funds into the program, which may hold the Senate up well into its recess, as DeMint can tie the Senate in enough procedural knots to create more than a week of delay. DeMint voted against the original measure.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the program will be alive this weekend and that people looking to buy a car through the program this weekend should still do so — but would not commit to any timeframe beyond that.

“If you were planning on going to buy a car this weekend, using this program, this program continues to run,” Gibbs told reporters.

But Gibbs said administration officials and bipartisan leaders of Congress were working Friday morning “to find and develop ways to continue to fund this program.”

The poor, benighted little people. They just don’t understand what a wonderful hopey-changey world Pres. Obama is offering them . . .

Andrea Mitchell has suggested that the problem Pres. Obama is facing in selling his health care plan to Americans who already have coverage is that people “may not know what’s good for them.” [H/t reader Restless 1]

Mitchell made her condescending comment on today’s Morning Joe.

ANDREA MITCHELL: You’ve got 47% of the people in our NBC/Wall Street Journal opinion poll who have health insurance who don’t like what the president is doing. The problem he’s got — 47% of the people who’ve got coverage don’t want change. They don’t like what they’re hearing. Now, they may not know what’s good for them, but the problem is that he always knew he was going to have to persuade people with insurance, that’s the largest number, not the people without insurance, for expanded coverage. So they’ve got a real problem.

Condescension seems to be in the MSNBC air. Yesterday, we noted Chris Matthews, surprised that Sgt. James Crowley could handle a press conference, calling him “our Susan Boyle.” Now this.

Health care reform could end up bailing out employers who hire illegal immigrants and skimp on their health benefits.

Under the legislation being considered on Capitol Hill, undocumented workers would technically not be covered. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said as much in an interview Sunday.

“No, illegal immigrants are not covered by this plan,” she said.

But the reality, immigration analysts say, is that the legislation is missing any mechanism to keep illegals out of the system. And if they exploit that loophole, taxpayers could be on the hook for billions to cover health care costs their employers do not.

Already, illegal immigrants account for $10.7 billion in state and federal health care spending, according to preliminary numbers from The Federation for American Immigration Reform.

Special projects director Jack Martin said that amount, which derives in large part from emergency room visits and births, would only rise unless the health care proposals on the Hill are changed.

“The bill in its current form is in effect going to be tempting to illegal immigrants who are not yet receiving medical benefits,” Martin said. “We would expect that the cost would increase.”

In a recent study, FAIR said that nothing in the health care package would prevent illegal immigrants from enrolling in a taxpayer-funded public plan, and that no verification mechanisms exist to prevent them from receiving credits to help with private plans.

The increased burden on taxpayers means they would inevitably end up footing the bill for employers who hire illegal immigrants.

The Center for Immigration Studies estimates that 7.25 million illegal immigrants do not have health insurance.

Steven Camarota, research director at the non-partisan think tank, said that of those, about 4 million are probably employed — and that the cost of covering all of them could be in the neighborhood of $8 billion to $12 billion annually.

Those figures are full of variables.

On one hand, it doesn’t include the cost of covering children — which could put the number even higher.

On the other, it assumes all employed illegal immigrants had no public health benefits before and would suddenly max them out in the future. In reality, some of them would have already been funded in part by the public whenever they went to the emergency room. Plus it’s unlikely that all 4 million would seek better health care under the new plan because some would be afraid of being caught. And businesses big enough could face a mandate to provide coverage anyway, should they choose to comply. That puts the final number lower.

In addition, many illegal immigrants do pay taxes — so those individuals would not be getting something for nothing.

But Camarota said at the very least, the health care plans being considered on Capitol Hill would probably exacerbate the problem of employers letting taxpayers pay for their illegal workers’ health care.

“Illegal immigration kind of looms as the 800-pound gorilla,” he said. “The impact is really big.”

And he said the legislation invites that impact.

“The legislation says illegal immigrants are not supposed to get this plan, but it also guts any of the mechanisms that would leave them out — typical Washington kind of thing,” Camarota said.

Though undocumented workers wouldn’t technically be allowed in the plan, President Obama frequently factors them in to describe how bad the health care crisis is.

Just last week, Obama cited the “47 million Americans” who are uninsured as he called on Congress to act.

But that figure, which critics say is already slightly overstated, includes millions of non-citizens — legal and illegal.

A Census report on 2007 statistics showed that the 45.7 million people in the United States were uninsured. Of those, 9.7 million were not citizens.

And most of those are illegal immigrants, according to other studies. While the Center for Immigration Studies estimated 7.25 million were illegal, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that number at 6 million.

Why are so many immigrants uninsured?

According to a report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, non-citizen immigrants are far more likely to be uninsured than native-born citizens mostly because they are less likely to be offered health insurance by their employers.

Liberty Council has a brief analysis of what the government health care, as it is currently written, is going to do to you. Out of all of the horrible things in this bill, here’s the one that galls me the most:Members of Congress will be exempt from being forced into this plan. They will have their own. The liberals, Democrats and some Republicans – while forcing you to join the plan – refuse to include themselves. Members of Congress will have a better plan which gives them freedom you will be denied.

Here’s some that caught my eyes. Be sure to follow the link at the end and read the whole thing.

• Sec. 122, Pg 29, lines 4-16 – YOUR HEALTHCARE WILL BE RATIONED!
• Sec. 123, Pg 30 – THERE WILL BE A GOVERNMENT COMMITTEE deciding what treatments and benefits you get.
• Sec. 142, Pg 42 – The Health Choices Commissioner will choose your benefits for you. You have no choice!
• Sec. 152, Pg 50-51 – HC will be provided to ALL NON-US citizens.
• Sec. 163, Pg 58-59 beginning at line 5 – government will have real-time access to individual’s finances & a National ID Health care card will be issued!
• Sec. 163, Pg 59, lines 21-24 – government will have direct access to your banks accounts for electronic funds transfer.
• Sec. 164, Pg 65 is a payoff subsidized plan for retirees and their families in unions & community organizations (ACORN).
• Sec. 201, Pg 72, Lines 8-14 – government is creating an HC Exchange to bring private plans under government control.
• Sec. 203, Pg 85, Line 7 – Specifications of benefit levels for plans means that the government will define your HC plan and has the ability to ration your healthcare!
• Pg 287 Line 14-25 PROOF that Govt will ration HC by mandating waiting periods for readmission.
• Sec. 312, Pg 145, Line 15-17 – Employers MUST auto-enroll employees into public option plan.
• Sec. 401.59B, Pg 167, Lines 18-23 – ANY individual who does not have acceptable care, according to government, will be taxed 2.5% of income.
• Sec.59B, Pg 170 Lines, 1 – Any NONRESIDENT alien is exempt from individual taxes. (Americans will pay for their healthcare.)
• Sec. 431, Pg 195, Lines 1-3 – Officers and employees of HC Administration (government) will have access to ALL Americans financial and personal records.
• Sec. 441, Pg 203, Lines 14-15 – “The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax” Yes, it says that.
• PG 455 Lines 3-4 Govt exempts itself from Chapter 35, Title 44 Paperwork Reduction & Citizens Privacy Protection Act
• Sec. 1121, Pg 239, Line 14-24 – The government will limit and reduce physician services for Medicaid. Seniors, low income and poor are the ones affected.• Sec. 1145, Pg 272 – Treatment of certain cancer hospitals: Cancer patients and their treatment are open to rationing!
• Sec. 1177, Pg 354 – Government will RESTRICT enrollment of Special needs people! “Extension of Authority of Special Needs Plans to Restrict Enrollment.”
• Sec. 1233, Pg 430, Lines 11-15 – The government will decide what level of treatment you will have at end of life according to pre-set methods (not individually decided).
• Sec. 1401, Pg 503, Lines 13-19 – The government will build registries and data networks from YOUR electronic medical records. “The Center may secure directly from any department or agency of the United States information necessary to enable it to carry out this section.”
• Sec. 1704, Pg 756-761 – The government will shift burden of payments to Disproportionate Share Hospitals (DSH) to states (your taxes).
• Sec. 1714, Pg 769 – Federal government mandates eligibility for State Family Planning Services. Abortion and government control intertwined.
• Sec. 1733, Pg 788-798 – government will set and mandate drug prices, therefore controlling which drugs are brought to market. (Goodbye innovation and private research.)• Sec.1751, Pg 800 Sec 1751 – The government will decide which Health Care conditions will be paid. Say “RATION!”
• Sec. 4375, Pg 828-832, Lines 12-16 – Government will impose a fee on ALL private health insurance plans including self-insured to pay for Trust Fund!
• Sec. 440, Pg 837-839 – The government will design and implement Home Visitation Program for families with young kids and families that are expecting children.
• Sec. 1904, Pg 843-844—This Home Visitation Program includes the government coming into your house and teaching/telling you how to parent!
• Sec. 2511, Pg 992 – Government will establish school based “health” clinics. Your children will be indoctrinated and your grandchildren may be aborted!
• Sec. 399Z-1, Pg 993 – School Based Health Clinics will be integrated into the school environment. More government brainwashing in school.
• Sec. 2521, Pg 1000 – The government will establish a National Medical Device Registry. Will you be tracked?

07.30.09

You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

About two thirds of the public want the Temple rebuilt, including about half of secular Israelis, a new survey conducted for Ynet and the Gesher organization revealed.

The survey was held by the Panels Institute among 516 respondents that are a representative sample of the adult Jewish population. The margin of error was 4.3%.

Initially, the respondents were asked what happened on Tisha B’Av (Ninth of Av), and showed impressive knowledge. Ninety-seven percent responded that the Temple was destroyed, while only 2% said they did not know.

The second question was whether respondents wanted to see the Temple rebuilt. Sixty-four percent responded favorably, while 36% said no. An analysis of the answers showed that not only the ultra-Orthodox and the religious look forward to the rebuilding of the Temple (100% and 97% respectively), but also the traditional public (91%) and many seculars – 47%.

When asked whether it was at all justified to mark something that had happened 2,000 years ago, 80% said that it was, while 13% said only events related to the State of Israel should be commemorated.

Another 7% categorically replied with a “no.”

Here too an analysis of the answers revealed that the positions on Tisha B’Av transcended religious divisions – 74% of seculars and 100% of ultra-Orthodox responded that dates like Tisha B’Av should be commemorated.

Gesher Director General Rabbi Danny Tropper told Ynet in response to the survey results: “We are a nation with a remarkable historic affinity. The Temple was destroyed 1,942 years ago, and almost two thirds of the population want to see it rebuilt, including 47% of seculars.

“I don’t think this is a practical proposal, but it seems that Tisha B’Av really does constitute a day of meaningful memory to most of the people.”

(IsraelNN.com) The Temple Institute will begin building the sacrificial altar on Thursday, Tisha B’av, a fast day when Jews mourn the destruction of the Temple some 2,000 years ago.

The sacrificial altar was located in the center of the Temple, and upon it the Kohanim (priests) offered the numerous voluntary and obligatory sacrifices commanded in the Bible.

The Temple Institute, which has already built many of the vessels for the Holy Temple, such as the ark and the menorah, has now embarked on a project to build the altar. Construction begins Thursday in Mitzpe Yericho (east of Jerusalem) at 5:30 p.m.

“Unfortunately, we cannot currently build the altar in its proper place, on the Temple Mount,” Temple Institute director Yehudah Glick said. “We are building an altar of the minimum possible size so that we will be able to transport it to the Temple when it is rebuilt.”

Even a minimum size altar will work out to be approximately 4 meters tall, 6 meters long, and 6 meters wide. Workers have collected around 10 cubic meters of rocks weighing several tons already.

The rocks were gathered from the Dead Sea area and wrapped individually to assure they remain whole and are not touched by metal, as the Bible requires.

“The Torah says that no iron tools should be used on the altar’s stones,” Glick explained. “The altar represents a connection to life and to the creation of the world. Iron is the opposite – it is used to build tools of war, death, and destruction.”

The stones will be cemented together with a mixture of sand, clay, tar, and asphalt. Researchers from the Temple Institute visited the Finish glass factory near Yerucham to learn how to create a mixture which would remain as cool as possible under the altar’s unremitting fires and protect the Kohanim, who always worked in the Temple barefoot.

Glick said that Tisha B’av, a day associated with mourning, is really the ideal time to begin to build the Temple. “People mistakenly think Tisha B’av is only a day to cry,” he explained. “It also has to be a day of action. We have the ability in our era to begin the construction of the Temple.”

“There are many positive developments recently with regard to the Temple,” Glick added. “Hundreds of Jews visited the Temple Mount this week, and more and more continue to come, after undergoing the requisite ritual immersion.”

Support for President Barack Obama’s health-care effort has declined over the past five weeks, particularly among those who already have insurance, a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found, amid prolonged debate over costs and quality of care.

In mid-June, respondents were evenly divided when asked whether they thought Obama’s health plan was a good or bad idea. In the new poll, conducted July 24-27, 42% called it a bad idea while 36% said it was a good idea.

Among those with private insurance, the proportion calling the plan a bad idea rose to 47% from 37%.

Declining popularity of the health-care overhaul reflects rising anxiety over the federal budget deficit and congressional debate over the most contentious aspects of the legislation, including how to pay for it. The poll also shows concern over the role of government in determining personal medical decisions.

Trying to regain momentum, Obama is shifting his pitch to new consumer-protection rules for insurance companies, part of a bid to win over Americans who already have coverage.

David Axelrod, one of the president’s top advisers, acknowledged that the White House’s months-long focus on controlling medical costs hasn’t worked. “Consumer protections are a lot more tangible,” he said.

07.29.09

Again I ask: Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious. But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fullness bring!

I am talking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I make much of my ministry in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them. For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? If the part of the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy; if the root is holy, so are the branches.

If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not boast over those branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.” Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.

Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off. And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!

More cracks have appeared in the official story of Barack Obama’s family life, with the revelation in school documentation from the University of Washington that Ann Dunham most likely left her husband, Barack Sr., within weeks of the baby’s birth.

The official story as presented in his autobiography, “Dreams from My Father,” and in various accounts in newspapers and websites supporting Obama conflicts with the results of a careful analysis of the documentary evidence available.

For example, the official story claims that Dunham relocated to Seattle late in 1962, but documentary evidence establishes that Ann Dunham left Hawaii when she moved to Seattle in August or September 1961, only a few weeks after the birth of Barack Obama Jr.

Likewise, the official story describes how Dunham and Obama Sr. lived as man-and-wife in Hawaii until he left for Harvard to begin the fall term in September 1962. But the documents establish Dunham abandoned Obama Sr. when she left to begin school at the University of Washington in Seattle for the fall term of 1961 which began in September of that year.

The repositioning of the timeline revealed by the school documents may mask a yet undisclosed secret that lies at the heart of the Obama birth certificate controversy.

The Obama long-form original birth certificate continues to be hidden from the public by Obama despite a multitude of requests to make the document public.

But here are a number of critical dates documenting the birth of Barack Obama Jr. from available public records.

* Ann Dunham was born Nov. 29, 1942, according to her original Social Security Card. This would have made her 18 years old at the time Barack Obama Jr. was born.

* Barack Obama Jr. was born on Aug. 4, 1961; this would put his date of conception at the earliest on or around Nov. 4, 1960, assuming there was a full nine months of pregnancy.

* Records provided to WND by Stuart Lau, university registrar in the Office of Admissions and Records at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, document that Ann Dunham’s first day of instruction at the university was on Sept. 26, 1960, less than six weeks before the earliest date Barack Obama, Jr. could have been conceived.

* Ann Dunham and Barack H. Obama, Sr.’s divorce decree states they were married on Feb. 2, 1961, in Wailuku, Maui, in Hawaii. This would mean Obama’s parents were married approximately three months after Barack Obama, Jr. was conceived, if the baby went full-term.

* Instead of staying in Hawaii with her husband and new baby, Ann Dunham began classes at the University of Washington in Seattle in September 1961 for the autumn semester, less than two months after Obama was born. WND confirmed this date with Madolyne Lawson of the Office of Public Records at the University of Washington.

* Ann Dunham took up residence in Seattle at 516 13th Ave. E., according to the 1961 Seattle Polk directory. This residence was torn down in 1985 and is now replaced by twin Capital Park residential towers; the Seattle Polk Directory listing is for an “Mrs. Anna Obama,” a variant of her name that most researchers have considered to be Ann Dunham.

* At most, Barack Obama Sr. and Ann Dunham lived together for approximately eight months, from Feb. 2, 1961, the date of their marriage, until September 1961 when Ann Dunham began her studies at the University of Washington in Seattle. But there is nothing on the public record to suggest that Ann Dunham and Barack Obama Sr. ever lived together again as man and wife.

* There is nothing on the public record to suggest that Ann Dunham’s mother, Madeline Dunham, accompanied her daughter to Seattle in September 1961, even though she was 18 years old and responsible for a baby who was less than two months old.

* There is no evidence on the public record that Obama Sr. ever joined his wife in Seattle. Instead, the public evidence is that Obama Sr. remained in Hawaii, while his wife and infant son established their residence in Seattle.

* Obama Sr. began studies at Harvard University in September 1962, which means Dunham did not return to live in Hawaii until after Obama Sr. had left the islands, never to return to Hawaii again as a resident.

* The same records show Dunham did not resume her studies at the University of Hawaii until April 1963 for the spring semester, when Barack Obama was approximately one year and five months old.

* Dunham and Obama Sr. were divorced on Jan. 20, 1964.

The dates appear reliable, especially given the limited documentary evidence available about Barack Obama’s birth circumstances.

The dates permit the construction of this timeline: (see original link).

And the results raise several questions:

1. Were Dunham and Obama Sr. ever very much in love, even at the beginning of their relationship, or was the marriage always one of convenience arranged to mask an inconvenient pregnancy?

2. Did Dunham and Obama Sr. ever live together as man and wife, and if so, what testimony is there from neighbors at the time that would establish their residence address?

3. Was Obama Jr. born in Hawaii, or was he born in Kenya? Could he have been born in Seattle, or possibly even in British Columbia?

4. What hospital was Obama Jr., born in, and who was the attending physician? What official records establish these facts?

5. Who are Obama Jr.’s true birthright parents?

6. Why has President Obama prevented the release to the American public of his long-form original birth certificate listing the hospital of his birth, the attending physician and the identity of his parents, as recorded at the time of his birth? What information is on the original, long-form birth certificate that President Obama does not want the American people to see?

Many of these questions should be able to be answered if the American public could authenticate Barack Obama’s original, long-form birth certificate listing the hospital where he was born, the date and time of the birth, the attending physician and the names of the parents.

Well, the last hope of stopping this bigot judge of being confirmed to the Supreme Court lies in the filibuster. I hope our senators are up to the task.

WASHINGTON — The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday voted to approve Sonia Sotomayor as the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice over nearly solid Republican opposition, paving the way for a historic confirmation vote next week.

The panel voted 13-6 in favor of Sotomayor, with just one Republican, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, joining Democrats to support her. The nearly party-line tally masked deeper political divisions within GOP ranks about confirming President Barack Obama’s first high court nominee.

“I’m deciding to vote for a woman I would not have chosen,” Graham said. Obama’s choice to nominate the first-ever Latina to the highest court is “a big deal,” he added, declaring that, “America has changed for the better with her selection.”

The solid Republican vote against Sotomayor on the Judiciary panel reflected the choice many GOP conservatives have made to side with their core supporters and oppose a judge they charge will bring liberal bias and racial and gender prejudices to her decisions. Others in the party, however, are concerned that doing so could hurt their efforts to broaden their base, and particularly alienate Hispanic voters, a fast-growing segment of the electorate.

Democrats, for their part, are lining up solidly in favor of the 55-year-old federal appeals court judge, the daughter of Puerto Rican parents who was raised in a South Bronx housing project and educated in the Ivy League.

“There’s not one example — let alone a pattern — of her ruling based on bias or prejudice or sympathy,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the Judiciary Committee chairman. “She has administered justice without favoring one group of persons over another.”

The senior Republican, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, countered that Sotomayor’s speeches and a few of her rulings show she would let her opinions interfere in decisions.

“In speech after speech, year after year, Judge Sotomayor set forth a fully formed, I believe, judicial philosophy that conflicts with the great American tradition of blind justice and fidelity to the law as written,” Sessions said.

Mr. “President”, Mr. Obama, all of this could go away overnight, and as a bonus, you could make a bunch of us look like complete fools, if you would just provide a copy of your long form birth certificate. That’s all it would take. But you won’t. My opinion: you don’t have one. Or if you do, it shows information that would disqualify you from being president. You are a fake and liar, Mr. Obama.

Images of two 1961 Hawaii birth certificates similar to the one President Obama purportedly has on file have now been unveiled.

The Honolulu Advertiser published photostats of the original long-form birth certificates of twin daughters born to Eleanor Nordyke at Kapi’olani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital Aug. 5, 1961, one day after Obama was supposedly born at the same facility.

The Nordykes’ certificates include information missing from the short-form document for Obama published online, including the name of the hospital, the name of the attending physician, name and address of the parents, the race of the parents and the race of the baby.

As WND reported yesterday, Hawaii’s director of health responded to the growing controversy over the White House’s refusal to release Obama’s original long-form birth certificate by issuing a statement about the document in apparent contravention of Hawaiian law.

Dr. Chiyome Fukino declared she has seen the “original birth records” that verify Obama was born in Hawaii and is a “natural-born American citizen,” the Honolulu Advertiser reported.

But in two separate telephone interviews with WND, Janice Okubo, the health department’s public information officer, told WND that Hawaii law prohibited her from commenting on the birth records of any specific person.

WND also reported the Hawaii Department of Heath affirmed that no paper birth certificate records were destroyed when the department moved to electronic record-keeping in 2001.

The statement to WND by Janice Okubo, public information officer for state’s health department, contradicted CNN U.S. President Jon Klein, who ordered host Lou Dobbs to quit discussing Obama’s birth certificate on the air. Klein insisted the issue was “dead” because Obama’s original long-form birth certificate had been destroyed by the Hawaii DOH in the conversion to electronic files.

A close examination of the birth certificates issued by Kapi’olani to the Nordyke twins shows the registration number precedes the number given Obama, even though the future president was born a day earlier.

Susan Nordyke was born at 2:12 p.m. Hawaii time and was given No. 151 – 61 – 10637, which was filed with the Hawaii registrar Aug. 11, 1961.

Gretchen Nordyke followed at 2:17 p.m. and was given No. 151 – 61 – 10638, which was also filed with the Hawaii registrar Aug. 11, 1961.

According to a version of Obama’s purported short-form certificate available from FactCheck.org, Obama was given a higher registration number than the Nordyke twins. The online image indicates the number is No. 151 – 1961 – 10641, even though he was born Aug. 4, 1961, the day before the twins, and his birth was registered with the Hawaii registrar three days earlier, Aug. 8, 1961.

The middle figure in Obama’s purported registration also is different than the Nordykes’. Obama’s is 1961, indicating the year, while the Nordykes’ is merely 61.

One explanation for the out-of-order serial numbers might be that several serialized stacks of birth certificates were made available at different hospitals.

Another possibility is that Obama’s number is not a genuine registration number created in 1961 but was issued when the short-form document was generated during the 2008 presidential campaign.

Eleanor Nordyke told WND she thinks her twins got lower numbers because she went into the hospital Aug. 4, 1961, and was in labor for 20 hours before she delivered. She speculates that Ann Dunham came in after her and was given a later number, even though Dunham’s baby was born earlier. Nordyke’s twins were not born until the afternoon of the next day.

WND was unable to receive a response from Hawaii officials regarding the state’s procedure for issuing registration numbers.

Meanwhile, an image of an apparently fraudulent Kenyan certificate of birth circulated on the Web today from an unknown source. It alleged Obama was born in Mombasa. But a contributor at FreeRepublic.com debunked it, declaring “Busted!”

He pointed out that the background text, in Dutch, explained, in a rough translation, “This is not a government document. This is political commentary.”

It’s not just Obama’s original birth certificate at issue. WND has reported that among the documentation not yet available for Obama includes his kindergarten records, his Punahou school records, his Occidental College records, his Columbia University records, his Columbia thesis, his Harvard Law School records, his Harvard Law Review articles, his scholarly articles from the University of Chicago, his passport, his medical records, his files from his years as an Illinois state senator, his Illinois State Bar Association records, any baptism records, and his adoption records.

And if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree were grafted in among them, and with them became a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree, do not boast against the branches. But if you boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you.
(Rom. 11:17-18)

For the first time, Russia and Iran will hold a joint naval maneuver in the Caspian Sea, The Iranian Mehr News Agency reported Wednesday.

According to the report, the maneuver will include 30 Russian and Iranian ships, as well as helicopters.

A senior official in the Iranian ports authority was quoted by the report as saying that the maneuver would increase the coordination between the two countries and focus on search and rescue operations and the prevention of pollution.

In the 38th chapter of Ezekiel, we’re told that Russian and Iranian military forces will, along with a confederacy of nations in the region of the Middle East, launch a massive surprise military attack on the nation of Israel in the last days. This conflict is typically referred to as the battle of Gog-Magog.

Ezekiel 38:8-9:

After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land [that is] brought back from the sword, [and is] gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them.

Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee.

Scripture records that the attacking forces will be repelled and dramatically, but what makes the news story linked above so titillating to read is we can clearly see that this prophecy’s perfect fulfillment is far more plausible to occur today than it was yesterday. There’s a lot of that going on these days which is why I remain at my duty station, RaptureAlert.com, sounding the alert that Jesus Christ is coming soon.

It’s hard to imagine that there once was a time when it was almost impossible for the average person to own a copy of the Holy Bible. Until the invention of the printing press, each Bible had to be transcribed by hand.

Today, I have dozens of Bibles around the house. You can go to a dollar store and find piles of Bibles that were mass-produced in China. For a buck, you can also buy a digital copy of the Bible. I have a text file of the Bible that I can email to anyone around the world. It’s amazing to think that my Bible file would only take three seconds to transmit to someone with a cable modem. During the Middle Ages, it would have taken take three years to produce the same text for someone wealthy enough to afford one.

Over the course of time, we have gone from information resources being rare to them being in amazing abundance. In fact, I think we are now drowning in a sea of data. The internet has become a vast wasteland of trivial or useless garbage.

If you type the name “Jesus Christ” into a search engine, you will receive, as I did in Yahoo, 179 million results. There are some good links, but many are harmful. The Mormon cult alone has four links in the top twenty listings.

I’ve always thought the best plan of operation for any Christian website is to assess what value content will have the moment after the rapture. I would say that 80 percent of the information on the average prophecy site would become useless after the rapture. Most prophetic domains devote most of their space to news and issues with a temporary importance.

One of Satan’s main strategies in the destruction of men’s souls is to simply stall for time. Because people are born in a lost state, the devil knows that he wins by default. By causing Christians to waste time, he can achieve victory.

Christians who have the desire to be about the Lord’s work need to ask themselves, “Am I actually doing something productive?” I’ve seen all kinds of examples of folks engaged in trivial activity.

At least twice a month for the past five years, a woman named Mary Sullivan has been sending me and several leading figures in prophecy a forty-page email that attacks the pretrib rapture. I’m sure none of the other people on her list ever bother to read her manifesto.

The lack of priorities is another problem. I was once told about a woman who spends vast amounts of time on the internet posting news stories and running a message board. While she was cruising the internet nonstop, her daughter tried to commit suicide. I don’t know the details of situation, but the incident had no effect on her internet activity.

Social networking sites like FaceBook, MySpace, and Twitter are key examples of misspent energy. I would single out Twitter as the leader of the pack. I’ve seen dozens of Christian sites incorporate Twitter into their web activity, and I can’t recall one that posted anything meaningful. Most “Tweets,” as they are called, are just a log of what someone has done somewhere else on the ‘net. An example for RR would be, “I updated Nearing Midnight,” “I updated the Rapture Index,” or “I added new articles to the site.” I think the demise of Twitter will be the mass realization that nobody cares about the mundane activities of people’s lives.

This week, I found a great example of the fruits that spring from the productive use of time. A woman emailed me about the leader of an end-time cult. She asked me if I had any information on Irvin Baxter. Before I could reply to her, she had sent me another email, saying, “I sent you an email earlier about Irvin Baxter and his study on end-time prophecies. Interestingly enough, I typed in his name on Google and came upon the section of your site that has talked about him.”

I long ago realized that one reason RR has been so successful is that so many Christians are wasting time. In the case of the woman who was looking for information on Baxter, there should have been a dozen apologetic sites with more detailed information ahead of us on the Google search results. These sites don’t exist because most believers are focused on pursuits of trivial importance.

I firmly believe that if you pray long enough and hard enough for someone to come to faith in Christ, your intercession will eventually work. Unfortunately, it may take many years to achieve this goal. The time may come when there is not enough time. It may take ten years to lead your stubborn brother to the Lord. But if the Lord is coming two years from now, you’re eight years too late. Time is an important commodity, so don’t be twittering it away.

07.28.09

Do everything without complaining or arguing, 15so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life—in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing.

But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you. So you too should be glad and rejoice with me.

Like Marie Antoinette, Woman of the People Nancy Pelosi doesn’t really care what the hoi polloi think of her.

Let them eat…her Gulfstream exhaust.

Via Politico:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is one of the most despised political figures in the country.

And, frankly, she doesn’t give a damn.

“No, I don’t care,” Pelosi told POLITICO last Thursday, laughing heartily as she walked beneath the Capitol dome and plunged into a crowd of tourists.

Last week’s Public Strategies Inc./POLITICO poll brought grim news for Pelosi, revealing that only a quarter of Americans trust the San Francisco Democrat — putting her in the basement with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio).

Mention of the “trust” question halted the click-clack of Pelosi’s heels against Rotunda marble, and she turned to face the reporter who posed the question.

“I don’t know about ‘trust’ — I think I’m trusted,” she said.

“I certainly want to be trusted. I’m not particularly concerned if I’m liked.”

But month after month of polling shows that the speaker is neither trusted nor liked by the general public — even as she emerges from one of the most productive legislative periods any speaker has ever enjoyed.

“One of the most productive legislative periods any speaker has ever enjoyed?”

Translation: One of the largest-spending, massive-taxing, deliberative democracy-undermining legislative periods taxpayers have suffered.

I think it’s only a matter of time before San Fran Nan has a public meltdown like her Bay Area sister, Babs Boxer.

Tick, tick, tick…

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Commenter Dexter A.:

“L’maison, c’est moi.” says she.

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Still haven’t forgotten the great welcome mat Houston Tea Party activists rolled out for Pelosi. Remember?